LONDON – Hollywood might be bad for your health, according to a new study, which concludes that blockbuster movies paint a consequence-free view of sex and drugs.
Dr. Hasantha Gunasekera, the study’s lead author from the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, said the findings are troubling, “given the HIV and illicit drug pandemics in developing and industrialized countries.”
The Australian researchers studied a September 2003 list of the 200 biggest box-offices successes of all time as ranked by the Internet Movie Database. They excluded animated features, films with G and PG ratings, and movies released or set before the start of the AIDS pandemic in 1983.
Of the 87 remaining movies in the study published Monday in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 28 contained sex scenes – a total of 53 scenes in all.
Only one film – 1990’s “Pretty Woman,” in which Julia Roberts plays a prostitute – contained a “suggestion of condom use, which was the only reference to any form of birth control.”
“There were no depictions of important consequences of unprotected sex such as unwanted pregnancies, HIV or other STDs,” they added.
The sexiest film – in quantity, if not quality – was 2001’s “American Pie 2,” which contained seven episodes of unprotected sex in which the “only consequences were social embarrassment.”
The 1992 thriller “Basic Instinct” had six sex scenes, no birth control and no “public health consequences” – although death by ice pick was a threat.
Eight percent of the films contained depictions of marijuana use, and 7 percent other non-injected drugs, the researchers said.
Characters smoked tobacco in 68 percent of the films and got drunk in 32 percent.
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